The Kissing Bug
by SMKLegacy
Summary: Grissom and Sara talk. Response to the August 1, 2005 Unbound Improv Challenge and sequel to “Hot Cross Buns on Steel”.


**The Kissing Bug**

TEASER: Grissom and Sara talk. Response to the 08-01-05 Unbound Improv Challenge and sequel to "Hot Cross Buns on Steel".

RATING: T for implied sexuality.

SPOILERS: Anything and everything, especially "Butterflied", "Weeping Willow" and "Grave Danger".

DISCLAIMERS: Not mine. No matter how hard I wish or pray, they never will be. So I'm just playing with them for fun without profit. All of that goes to Bruckheimer, et al.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: You'll get more from this story if you read "Hot Cross Buns on Steel" first. Reviews appreciated, archived at my site, and vacation rocks! First and last lines given, 1000 word limit for the story itself; according to MS Word 2003, this is another story that is **_EXACTLY_** 1000 words – and it came down without more than fixing my typos and eliminating stray thoughts. BIZARRE.

**CSI CSI CSI**

**"Are you planning to sit and brood all day?" ** Catherine's whining voice arching from his door shook Grissom out of his quietude.

"I'm not brooding. I'm reading." He held up an entomology text. "More accurately, I'm studying the life cycle of _Triatoma indictiva_."

Once, Catherine would have taken that as a cue to come in and sit down. Given the strain in their relationship since the Granger case, he neither wanted nor expected her to do so. He set the book on his desk and turned a page, hoping she would leave.

She neither came in nor left. "Have you heard from Hodges?"

"He's out for a week. Sara's self-defense training kicked in but good."

Catherine groaned. "You and puns don't go together so well, Grissom. Sara coming in tonight?"

"She's already here, working trace on a case from last night."

"She suffered a pretty traumatic incident this morning."

Grissom eyed Catherine. "Her exact words about the incident to Nick a little while ago were, and I quote, 'I suffered a confinement almost as traumatic as yours. Well, maybe not QUITE as traumatic as "almost". More like "reminiscent of" in a sick and twisted sitcom kind of way.' Nick laughed, she laughed, hail, hail, the gang's all here, what the hell do we do now?"

Catherine tossed her strawberry-blond hair and threw her hands up in the air. "You have obviously inhaled or ingested something. You've been acting strange ever since . . . well, ever since Sara went missing this morning." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Stranger than usual, I mean."

"Catherine, I have work to do. I have an immuno-compromised victim who died of a Central and South American disease who has never been outside the state of Nevada, a bug from a species but not a genus that carries this disease, and not a clue yet what if any connection exists between them."

"You must be thrilled to have the puzzle. It will keep you busy for days."

"Perhaps. See you Monday." He wanted her to take the hint and leave.

"Yeah. Don't work all weekend. Try to have a life."

He just looked at her until she left, unwilling to open his mouth for fear that she would glean from his tone that he not only wouldn't be working all weekend, he wouldn't be working at all this weekend.

A little while later, Sara plopped down in the chair across from his desk. Somewhere along the line in the past few weeks, he had given her tacit permission to invade his space in a way not even Catherine at the height of their friendship had dared.

Earlier this morning, he had invaded her space in a way he had never dared with any woman before. Not that he had never kissed a woman before – far from it – but never before had he kissed a woman for the first time without asking permission, verbally or otherwise. This morning, though, the urge to kiss Sara once they were alone in the hallway outside the closet overwhelmed him to the point that he just lowered his lips to hers and kissed her with all the pent-up passion of their decade-long relationship. Just thinking about it now made him antsy for the shift to be over so he could partake of her lips again. And again and again and again.

Sara's brown eyes glowed, he hoped with more than just the excitement of a difficult case. "I found _T. indictiva, T. recurva, T. protracta, _and_ T. rubida _eggs and larvae on the sheets."

"The four species of kissing bug that have never been implicated in the spread of Chagas Disease."

"There's a first time for everything."

"One of these days, that rule is not going to be broken."

"Thus proving the rule that there's an exception to every rule."

They both laughed, comfortable now in a way they hadn't been in at least three years, maybe four.

Grissom sighed. "There's still an outside chance we misidentified the parasite."

"I doubt that, Gris. _Trypanosoma cruzi_ is pretty hard to miss."

"I know. But I'm looking forward to studying the kissing bug all weekend."

Her lips twisted in a sad grimace. "No rest for the weary?"

He hid the grin that wanted to spread across his face. She hadn't caught his double entendre. "No, I'll be studying all weekend."

She crossed her long, lean legs and twisted her shoulders as if to stretch. "'There is joy in work.' Henry Ford."

"That might be the rule to which there is no exception, Sara. Especially when one is studying kissing bugs."

He could see the moment she got it on her face, which lit up like a kid's on Christmas. She leapt up and closed the door before she came around to stand beside him at his desk. She spun his chair a quarter turn and straddled his legs, leaning down into his face.

He pulled her down onto his lap and locked his lips to hers, unable to help himself. She tasted just as good now as before, but her response this time had far less surprise and far more raw desire.

She groaned his name against his lips. With tremendous willpower, he pulled away from her lips and touched his forehead to hers instead.

"I thought," she said through her quickened breaths, "that you couldn't take the risk of losing everything you have for a chance at life."

He blinked, unsure for a moment when he might have said something like that. Then it hit him: she had overheard him talking to Dr. Lurie last year! He tilted his head up to kiss her again, praying that she would feel his love for her without question.

When they parted, she had tears in her eyes, but he could see by her smile that they were tears of joy. He wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her in to his body. **"You may be the one exception to that rule."**

**--FIN—**


End file.
